#Everywedding Shows Weddings Today Are About Inclusivity, Not Just Extravagance

This old English poem, still referenced in 21st-century nuptials, encompasses a handful of wedding traditions. The practices within are said to ensure a long and prosperous marriage for a bride who manages to accommodate each object or accessory in her wedding day attire. That’s why a startup company in Charlottesville, Virginia, whose name is derived from this very poem, is making waves with its deviation from the old way of wedding planning. Borrowed & Blue, founded in 2012 by husband and wife team Adam and Christin Healey, is a user-friendly website that prides itself in providing couples with “the smarter way to wed”—that is, more information, more resources, and more inspiration in one convenient location. With more options come more opportunities for personalization, meaning your wedding can be just that: yours.

Last week, Borrowed & Blue released its #everywedding campaign, a movement in which the company pledges to publish every single wedding submitted to the site regardless of the married couple’s age, budget, religion, body type, gender, sexual orientation, or any other classification you can think of. The bottom line? Everyone deserves a beautiful wedding.

The #everywedding campaign captures the inherent beauty of marriage as the union between two people pledging to spend the rest of their lives together. Neither the thread count of the table linens, the cost of the dress (or, hey, why not a spiffy pantsuit?), or size of the guest list should factor into the quality of a wedding when the day is about two lives becoming one.

Jenny V Photography

Borrowed & Blue’s mission highlights just how drastically millennial weddings are breaking the traditional marriage mold. A 2015 study done by the Institute for Family Studies, determined that the ideal age at which people should get married is 28-32. It seems that millennials are doing just that. With graduate school programs becoming the norm and couples delaying marriage until one or both partners has a steady source of income, it’s no wonder that today’s weddings look differently than they did 20 or 30 years ago.

In waiting longer to get married, more and more couples are fronting or sharing the cost of their nuptials with one or both partners’ parents. The rules of the game have changed since our parents and our parents’ parents walked the aisle. Having a greater financial hand in their own weddings, millennials have more motivation to forge their own paths to the altar, chuppah, or sequin-studded backdrop.

Rachel May Photography

While there’s certainly nothing wrong with abiding by tradition—after all, how many occasions does a girl have to don an all-white dress?—B&B seeks to spread the message that the perfect wedding doesn’t have one budget, location, color scheme, or even size. The perfect wedding is yours and it’s up to you what that looks like. Whether the bride or groom is 25 or 65, petit or plus sized, dressed in classic black tie attire or colorful bohemian duds, the day deserves to be celebrated.

The poignancy of this message is all the more meaningful in the wake of the Orlando shootings at the beginning of the summer and other senseless acts of violence that have rocked this nation and the world at large for months. In a world where the sanctity of human life seems constantly in jeopardy, it’s refreshing to be reminded that no matter where we come from or where we are going, we are all humans capable of giving and receiving love. In the face of violence and adversity and loss, it’s important to celebrate that truth.

Tonette Madsen Photography

The goal of #everywedding is both to honor the couples featured in each wedding published to the site as well as to show to every B&B fan and follower that there is no one face to the perfect wedding. By marrying (pun partially intended) the multi-billion dollar wedding industry with the spirit of inclusivity, B&B makes weddings about much more than a single celebration. Because love is—and always has been—love.

From Borrowed & Blue couples to certified wedding vendors across the nation, #everywedding has gained an enormous amount of support since the mission was announced. Not yet a week old, this campaign has already garnered a huge social media following.

As #everywedding takes over Borrowed & Blue’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, the question that remains is, what can you do? You might not be married or even in the market for a ring, but that doesn’t mean that you too can’t support #everywedding’s mission. Share this message, support it, and remember it when planning your own wedding. Every wedding is beautiful and every wedding deserves its moment in the spotlight.

Julia has spent the majority of her life in beautiful Virginia, although her slight accent suggests she spent more than her first four years in New York. She's a student at a public University where she supplements the in-state break in tuition with far too many trips to downtown restaurants and bookstores. A recovering "Friends" addict, Julia prefers intimate nights with Ben and Jerry over mundane collegiate activities like studying or barhopping. She's got a sweet tooth for writing and when she's not scribbling on every scrap of paper available, you'll find her questioning her own wardrobe or building a tolerance for classical music. At the moment, she's writing her first autobiography and mustering up the courage to go skydiving. Seriously.